ZELDA SAYRE
FITZGERALD
Childhood
Zelda Sayre was born on July 24th 1900 in Montgomery Alabama. As the youngest of six, her parents raised her to be free spirited, imaginative, and thoroughly spoiled. Since she was young, Zelda was a radiant girl and outshined other belles at dance recitals and socials. As a young debutante, she shined at country club dances and was a lovely dancer.
Courting
By the age of eighteen, Zelda had embodied the quintessential southern belle. Barely a month after graduating from high school, Zelda met F. Scott Fitzgerald, a 21-year-old army second lieutenant stationed at nearby. Despite Scott's claim that he was on the verge of literary fame, Zelda doubted his financial prospects and entertained several other suitor. In 1920 publisher Charles Scribner's Sons accepted Scott's first novel and Zelda finally accepted his proposal of marriage. The couple wed in New York on April 3, 1920.
Celebrity Status
As the inspiration for character Rosalind Connage, Zelda became an instant celebrity; and for the first half of the 1920s, she contributed her opinions to an eager media. In 1921, Zelda gave birth to the couple's only child, Frances "Scottie" Fitzgerald. Her reaction to the birth is said to have been used by Scott in The Great Gatsby, in which Daisy Buchanan states in response to the birth of her daughter: "I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."
Unhappiness
By the late 1920s, the Fitzgeralds's highly publicized and stormy relationship began to break down as Zelda sought outlets for her own creativity. In 1930, stress resulting from her frustrated attempts to become a professional ballerina led to the first of what would be many breakdowns. Although Zelda was treated for schizophrenia, experts later would contest both the diagnosis and regimen prescribed by her main physician, Dr. Oscar Forel
Writing
After several hospital stays, in 1932 Zelda entered Johns Hopkins University's Phipps Clinic, where she completed her only novel, Save Me the Waltz, an autobiographical recounting of her unstable marriage. Scott deeply resented the book, blaming the financial burden of her hospitalization for his inability to complete his own novel, Tender Is the Night, and he also accused Zelda of poaching its plot for her novel.
Art
Writing was not Zelda's only form of artistic expression - she was also a painter. She painted brilliantly colored whimsical, sometimes fantastical works of art. A fire destroyed most paintings, and Zelda even donated some to the army during World War II to be painted over and used as canvas.
End of a Marriage
The Fitzgeralds parted ways in 1934, although they never divorced despite Zelda's years of petitioning for it. From 1936 to 1940, Zelda resided in Highland Hospital and Scott descended into alcoholism and literary obscurity, eventually relocating to Hollywood in the hope of establishing himself as a screenwriter. He died of a heart attack there on December 21, 1940. That year, Zelda returned to Montgomery, where she lived under the care of her mother.
Her Death
After her husband's death, she took again to painting, she took occasional dance lessons and she began a second novel entitled Caesar's Things, which remains unpublished. She returned to Highland Hospital when her depression became debilitating and was one of nine women killed on the night of March 10, 1948, when a fire swept through the hospital's main wing. She had been locked into a room awaiting electroshock therapy and was unable to escape the flames. She was buried next to her late husband.
Her Legacy
Zelda died in relative obscurity but decades after her death, artists and biographers rediscovered Zelda's life. She was portrayed on film, and books were published about her. She even inspired the Eagles song "Witchy Woman." She became remembered as a tragic beauty, a Marilyn Monroe for the Jazz Age. Critics appraised her novel and feminists embraced her for her struggle against Scott's controlling tendencies. Though Zelda's public persona had been an open book during her lifetime, it seems that the general public wrote its own sequel after her death.Zelda Fitzgerald's story has evolved to reveal much more than the glitzy parts – more, even, than the beautiful-but-doomed stereotype suggested by her struggle with mental illness.
